3 Sehr geehrter Herr Alridge, Frage 1: In which areas of customer communication does it make sense to use automated voice systems? Which areas of customer communication can be fully automated using it, and which do not benefit from it at all? : Automated voice self service makes the most sense for customer transactions that are frequent, simple and relatively straightforward - for instance, checking a bank balance or booking a direct flight from one major city to another. Voice self-service generally does not make sense for transactions that are complex or lengthy - for instance, booking a flight with multiple legs. Self-service applications also need to match the customer audience. A transaction most often conducted by senior citizens, for instance, might best be handled by live agents, because the audience might not feel comfortable with self service. The type of self-service used is also important. Transactions involving long account numbers are best served with a touch-tone application - meaning the customer enters in their account number using the telephone keypad - rather than speech recognition, which is more prone to error for long transactions and thus would take too long. Frage 2: How do companies manage to convince their customers of the advantages of telephone selfservice? : By ensuring that their automated systems provide service that is at least as good as, if not better than, the service they receive from live agents! A Purdue University (Indiana, USA) study found that 92 percent of consumers will form their image of a company based on their first experience using the company s call centre. Further, 63 percent will stop using a company s products based on one negative call centre experience (that figure jumps to 100 percent for consumers ages 18-25). Those numbers indicate that first impressions are crucial, and companies must strive to provide a great experience via their self-service channels. That s why proactive testing and monitoring are so important. Seite 3

4 Frage 3: Which advantages, especially beyond the cost savings, does the integration of a voice application into the corporate communication offer? The cost advantages are obvious - a voice self-service transaction costs less than one euro, while each agent -assisted call costs approximately nine euros - a 9x difference. Other advantages to implementing voice self-service include better and faster service for customers, and higher agent satisfaction as agents are spared repeated, routine transactions and instead can spend their time on high-value customer transactions. In addition, because Web and voice self-service channels often share a converged infrastructure, companies can leverage their knowledge of a customer to provide better, more personalized service across both channels. For example, if a bank knows that a customer has recently transferred a large sum of money into a savings account via its Web site, when that customer calls in, the voice self-service can prompt her to Press 1 to learn more about tax-free retirement accounts. This type of cross marketing brings higher profit to companies, and better service to customers Frage 4: Which possibilities do you see of integrating spoken-dialogue systems into marketing campaigns? The technology exists to do that sort of thing today. In our work, however, Empirix concentrates primarily on applications for inbound customer transactions - meaning, the customer is calling in to a contact centre rather than the other way round. Frage 5: How do companies achieve the greatest possible degree of customer acceptance and user friendliness with regards to voice portals? Which mistakes should be avoided at all costs in this context? Empirix has been testing contact centre applications for more than a decade, and we have never performed a test that didn t find at least one major problem - there are usually several! We recommend three types of testing to ensure maximum customer acceptance. First, usability testing, where real people get on the phone and conduct sample transactions, evaluating facets such as, Are the menus intuitive? and Are all of the most frequent transactions represented in the menu? Second, automated functional testing, where software is used to quickly and automatically perform many Seite 4

5 types of transactions repeatedly to ensure that the system works as designed for a single user. Third, automated performance testing, where software is used to generate a high number of transactions simultaneously, to ensure that the system will perform well under a heavy caller load. We have never seen a contact centre application pass all three types of tests on the first try - usually, several rounds of testing are required. But the good news is, because functional and performance testing can be automated, they can be conducted in a short amount of time. steht und notwendige Entscheidungen so getroffen werden, dass der Anrufer den maximalen Nutzen davon hat. Frage 6: How can voice portals be integrated into a company s multi-channel strategy? In this situation, is it technically possible to operate web self-service and voice self-service from a (single) platform? Because the vast majority of a company s customer inquiries come in via the telephone - on order of 85 percent, according to the Purdue University study - it s absolutely essential that the voice self-service channel be integrated into a company s multi-channel strategy. It s becoming more and more common for the voice, Web and even retail/point-of-sale channels to share a converged back end - meaning a common database and network. This enables employees across the company to access up-to-date customer information to provide the best possible service. Empirix has performed a lot of work in this area, helping to ensure that cross-channel customer applications from vendors such as Oracle/Siebel perform well. Frage 7: Which investments and operating expenses does the introduction of a spoken-dialogue system to automate customer contacts, call for and how long would you typically expect it to take for investments in voice automation to pay off? Investments and payback periods vary widely based on the type of technology being implemented, and the type of company that s deploying it. An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system, which enables voice self-service, typically costs over while a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application for optimising the cross-channel customer experience may cost and have a payback period of two years. In general, companies that experience a very high volume of repetitive transactions will get the most out of voice self-service. And testing becomes more and Seite 5

6 more important as the price tag for the technology goes up - testing is like insurance that helps you get the best and fastest return on your investments. Frage 8: Which mode of operation (hosted/managed service versus owner-operated) is profitable under which circumstances? This also varies widely. Most often, we see that the major driver for making the outsource versus insource decision is not cost - it s human resources. Some firms want to concentrate on what they are best at - an insurance firm, for instance, may want to focus on underwriting insurance policies and leave voice-self service to an outside expert. Other firms may find that they have experienced staff in house who are prepared to build and manage a voice self-service infrastructure on their own. It s often a philosophical issue rather than a cost issue. If a firm has experienced staff in house, it may make sense to buy voice self-service technology rather than rent via managed service. Frage 9: From your point of view, what is the relevance of standard applications (so-called packaged solutions ) in this context? Packaged solutions can certainly help companies implement voice self-service more quickly - but buyers need to realize that very few organisations can deploy these solutions as is, out of the box. A certain level of customisation and integration are required, and things can get complex rather quickly. A good systems integrator can be very helpful, and of course we recommend testing to ensure that everything is connected properly so that potential problems can be identified and addressed before customers are impacted. Also, speech companies are developing rapid application development tools which cut down the cost and time to develop and deploy speech applications. However, many companies still want the ability to add their own style and branding to their speech applications. Seite 6

7 Frage 10: What do you predict to be the major trends and developments in the field of voice applications over the next 3 years? We are seeing some very exciting advances in the areas of speech analytics, presence and virtualization. And of course the industry is currently experiencing a major shift from traditional TDM technology to Voice over IP - virtually every new contact centre being opened in Europe is being built from the ground up on VoIP technology. Three years ago VoIP was a rarity, but I expect three years from now you d be hard pressed to find a contact centre without it. Also, a number of the major Telco s in Europe are looking at having network based voice portals that are driven from speech enabled PDA s. Thank you for the Interview! Seite 7

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